Accused hostage-taker appears in Belfast court

STOCKTON SPRINGS, Maine — A year has passed since an armed gunman allegedly terrified local schoolchildren when he stormed into their fifth-grade classroom last Halloween and held them hostage, and the accused has yet to be tried on the resulting charges.

Randall Brian Hofland, 56, of Searsport was indicted on 22 counts of kidnapping, 12 counts of criminal restraint with a dangerous weapon, six counts of criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon, and one count of burglary after the Oct. 31, 2008, hostage-taking incident at Stockton Springs Elementary School.

None of the 11 students held hostage was physically injured during the incident, which lasted about a half-hour. It ended when Hofland handed his 10 mm handgun to a male pupil and was tackled by police as he left the classroom and stepped into the hallway.

Waldo County District Attorney Geoffrey Rushlau attributed the delay in bringing Hofland to trial in part to the numerous motions filed with the case.

Hofland, who is acting as his own attorney with assistance from Jeffrey Toothaker of Ellsworth, to date has filed more than 40 motions with the case.

The motions are handwritten on yellow lined paper and deal with discovery issues, requests for sanctions against the state and county for alleged violations of numerous federal and state laws, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and requests for dismissals.

Hofland has demanded that special hearings be convened to investigate “criminal acts” designed to impair his ability to present witnesses and evidence in support of his motions. He also accused law enforcement of tampering and destruction of evidence and county jail administrators of infringing on his right to due process.

Nearly all of the motions have to do with a police search of his property conducted after he was arrested. A number of items were confiscated during the search and returned to a former employer of Hofland’s who police believe was their rightful owner. Hofland contends the items were his. His filings appear to be more focused on the property than on what happened at the school.

Although Rushlau declined to comment specifically on the motions, he acknowledged that they have slowed the proceedings. There have been a number of hearings on the motions during the past year, but Waldo County Superior Court Justice Jeffrey Hjelm has yet to rule on them.

“He has filed a vast number of motions,” Rushlau said this week. “Just examining the record and seeing the vast amount of things he’s put before the court it’s hard to see that they have much to do with the crimes with which he is charged. My focus is with the crimes with which he has been charged.”

Hofland was back in Waldo County Superior Court on Friday arguing his motions before Justice Hjelm. Hofland has been shuttled among several county jails since his arrest a year ago and now is being housed at Somerset County Jail.

Commenting about the Somerset County Jail in one of his court filings, Hofland noted, “How I ended up so far away [from Waldo County] … I have no idea, but here I am. But the food is much better here at least.”

At the time he entered the school carrying a gun, Hofland already had been the subject of a weeklong police manhunt.

On Oct. 23, 2008, he allegedly brandished a handgun at a Searsport police officer during a routine safety check a few hundred yards from his residence. Hofland then fled into nearby woods. At some point that night while police searched for him, Hofland called the Waldo County Communications Center and told a dispatcher there would be “war” unless the police backed off.

According to police reports, Hofland entered the school at 8:35 a.m. Friday, Oct. 31, 2008, and attempted to pull two boys into a locker room. When a bus driver confronted him, Hofland allegedly drew his gun and pointed it at the man’s head.

Hofland then left the gym and forced his way into the fifth-grade classroom. He allegedly ordered the teacher out of the room at gunpoint and then went to the corner where the 11 students were huddled. He let two tearful pupils leave the room and a short time later handed his gun to a male student and stepped into the hallway. He was immediately tackled by a state trooper and taken to jail.

As was the case during the other hearings on his motions, Hofland on Friday delivered a rambling, nearly two-hour monologue that focused largely on the property that was taken from his residence.

Hofland also cited state and federal laws and said the state police, district attorney, county sheriffs and courts were out to get him and deny him access to testimony and evidence. He accused authorities of “obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence and tampering with witnesses.”

At one point, Hofland held up an inch-thick manila envelope that he claimed contained additional motions that he was unable to file because the jail would not provide him with copies.

Throughout the presentation, attorney Toothaker sat at the defense table with his head resting on his left hand. When asked during a recess if he believed Hofland was hurting his case, Toothaker shrugged and said, “He’s taking the case in the direction he wants it to go. I just bring him stuff.”

In an abrupt change from his tactics in earlier hearings, Hofland for the first time briefly addressed the incident at the school, but only to charge that the witnesses involved had lied in their statements to police.

“I never pointed a gun at anybody’s head,” he said. “All these heroes lied about what happened. ... The gun wasn’t loaded. Your honor, I didn’t have a loaded gun.”

Hofland seemed to indicate that the events at the school stemmed from a conspiracy that began in New Hampshire in the late 1990s and carried over into Maine. He was embroiled in a divorce and child custody matter at the time and authorities there were concerned about threats to the judge.

Hofland claimed that his name was placed on a secret “watch list” as a result of what happened in New Hampshire and that Searsport police were aware of that when they stopped him at the safety check.

In the months leading up to the traffic stop on Oct. 23, 2008, Hofland had been engaged in a bitter civil dispute with his former employer over the disputed property. He claimed that the police not only were aware of it, but that they and the courts also had conspired against him in favor of the employer.

Rushlau indicated that there were legal ways to address the return of Hofland’s property and that the issue should be separated from the Stockton Springs incident.

“There are legal mechanisms for him to do it,” Rushlau told the court. “He persistently returns to that issue, but it does not relate to the indictment.”

Rushlau said he wanted to get all the preliminary matters raised by Hofland out of the way within the next two months and hoped he would be brought to trial early next year.

“I am anticipating that it will be on the trial docket in January. That’s my assumption,” he said.